By Nicole Matheson
With his son by his side, legendary former Husky coach Marv
Harshman Last Friday listened to comforting bible verses, closed his eyes and
drifted into a peaceful slumber, never to wake again.
Harshman concluded his 40-year long coaching reign at the
University of Washington where he trained and mentored names like Steve Hawes,
Chris Welp, Detlef Schrempf and current coach, Lorenzo Romar.
“We obviously lost a legend. I learned so much from Coach,”
Romar reflected in a statement. “I went to Washington expecting to play with a
legendary coach, I didn’t know I would get the bonus of playing for a legendary
person.”
“He taught me how to play basketball the right way and that
had a lasting impact on me and many people,” Schrempf professed.
Coaching from the west to the east (and back to the west) of
Washington state, Harshman debuted his coaching career at his alma mater,
Pacific Lutheran University, winning four NAIA District I titles. From there he
moved to eastern Washington where he coached for Washington State University
going 155-181 for 13 seasons. His coaching career ended with 14 seasons on the
west side of the Cascades at University of Washington. While with the Huskies,
Harshman he led them to three NCAA tournaments and won more than 20 games in
the regular season four times becoming the second most victories of all time
for a coach in UW history (246-146).
Harshman was not only an award winning coach looking to
build accolades, he was thought of as a monument in the college basketball
community attending college basketball games a few times during the season. He
was a man with many capacities including writing an autobiography and coaching
football in the early years of his career confusing to the Seattle P-I in 2007
that he liked football better. Astonishing to think that a man with 600
victories under his belt coaching basketball preferred football.
When remembering his father, Dave Harshman fondly revealed a
woman’s statement she personally made to him saying, “If there were more people
in the world like Marv Harshman the world would be a better place.”
